A Puzzle in Five Pieces: Models of Disability

There are four models for framing and understanding
disability each named for its fundamental point of reference: Each seeks to
clarify different set of observations and solve the unique sets of problems
they suggest. Significantly, the only model developed by the community of
persons with disabilities is the third, the Social Model, yet each one has its
limits when taken in isolation:

The problem with the Medical Model of Disability in
isolation is when it prescribes a cure even where a conversion is the more
therapeutic outcome.

The problem with the Social Model of Disability in
isolation is when the power of its critique fails to be matched by the critical
thinking of its practitioners.

The problem with the Economic Model of Disability in
isolation - aside from still being incompletely defined - is that rationally
self-interested actions by those systematically marginalized from the global
economy tend to be radically destabilizing.

Schmaltz - keening, doting, emotionally-hobbling,
and cloying intrusiveness was the fare of the master of the compulsive Charity Model's impulse - comedian Jerry Lewis. or decades the
disability community reacted with revulsion, indignation, and fury. Arguably
the surgical precision of the Social Model of Disability's tools were sharpened
in fencing with such institutions of "Patronization Gone Wild." This happened
even as people with disabilities left, en masse, those religious institutions
that held the historic claims to authentic expressions of charity whether
bundled as justice, agape, satyagraha, dana, or, yes, the true jihad.

For all his charm and personal generosity Christopher
Reeves, of Superman fame, perpetuated the manic pursuit of cure at all costs. A
super-crip legacy fed by desperation to return to some pre-trauma self-identity
as "normal" is a thin mask. The fall from denial of the reality of one's limits
can be faster than a speeding bullet when the latest breakthrough protocol or
prosthetic fails to rescue. The Medical Model, operating without the Social and
Economic Models, runs the risk of turning out brilliant but stigmatizing and
unmarketable assisstive devices when it fails to start from the premises of
Universal Design's inclusiveness.

Even reading only the debates in English those claiming
allegiance to the Social Model of Disability can appear to be "two nations
divided by a common language." However the model is formulated, and
however it situates Universal (or Inclusive) Design within its intellectual
framework, the Social Model's silence on economics is a vulnerability in a
globalized economic downturn. It's presumption of a shared baseline sense of
justice is bolstered by the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities (CRPD) but implementation of such high ideals depends on
countering ideologies that slash social safety nets in the name of fiscal for
those already enfranchised.

With three models of disability unable to stand on their
own do we need a fourth - an Economic Model of Disability? Certainly not in
isolation. As globalized competitiveness makes redundant the labor of people
with disabilities those with the power of production still refuse to recognize their
own economic self-interest in mainstreaming the consumer with a disability
through appropriate products, services, marketing, and accessibility of retail
outlets.

A paradigm shift of classical proportions would offer a
radical break with these four models. It would build on their legitimate
contributions to our knowledge and practice while launching off in an
as-yet-unknown positive direction.

Until we have a fifth paradigm-shifting or Unified Model of Disability to prompt such a revolution I suggest roots revisitation:

Charity Model: What are the classical core values
of the world's dominant religions and spiritualities with regard to charity in
general and disability specifically? Equally as important, what are the core
values of the sub-dominant, even oppressed, spiritualities that have shared
marginalization yet survived to this day?

Hint: There will be living
expressions of those values embodied in their practices of hospitality.

Medical Model: What is the growth edge where
medicine confronts the limits to "cure" as limited to an individual organism?
How can designers of assisstive medical devices combine market-appealing status
and style with ease of integration to standard products to enhance both and
grow markets while erasing the stigma of diversity of human functionalities?

Hint: Institutions like Italy's Carlo Besta National Neurological Institute are
pursuing Inclusive Tourism as management of chronic conditions - the defining
medical issue of global aging and the population inversion.

Social Model: With implementation of the United
Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as the
order of the day in all countries that have ratified it how do Disabled
People's Organizations (DPO's) morph into trusted policy advisors to government
and business while not losing their organic connection to their constituencies?
What is sustainable inclusion of persons with disabilities?

Hint: The
Paralympics exemplified the spirit of Article 30 of the CRPD on sport, leisure,
and tourism. The temporarily unifying power of major sporting events is well
illuminated as one case study in All Things Shining. Reading the Western
Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean
Dorrance Kelly as they offer a critique of what amounts the denial of the core
insight of disability - our interdependence. Also
watch for experiments with the Social Model inspired by Article 30 permeating
Brazil's grassroots preparations for the 2014 FIFA soccer World Cup and the
2016 Olympic Games.

Economic Model: Still incomplete as a model how
will the irrational exuberance of recent years stand up against the stifling
self-protective behavior of the economically privileged (often synonymous with
the Temporarily Able-Bodied) in the completed model?

Hint: As the Economic
Model of Disability moves from being descriptive to being predictive watch for
it to absorb insights gleaned from the Charity, Medical, and Social Models.

Dr. Scott Rains writes daily on disability, travel, and
Universal Design at www.RollingRains.com
and on Facebook.